Jak Koke - Stranger souls

"Telecom for you," she said. "Urgent from Nadja Daviar."

"Thank you," he said, but he was wondering, Who is Nadja Daviar?

"You can take it below decks," she said. "This way."

Ryan followed her, with Axler and the others behind. He felt safe for the first time in a long time. He hadn't really felt safe in the clinic, though he was still not sure why. She led him down into the ship, through gray metal corridors, past gray metal rooms, until she stopped at a gray metal door.

"In here, Mr. Mercury," she said.

He stepped into the room, which was tiny, with only a narrow bunk and a fold-away tabletop. There was a telecom screen built into a wall, however. He touched the screen to activate it.

A woman's image appeared. Elven, with pale skin and black hair. She was beautiful and commanding. Deep green eyes sparkled under the sharp lines of her black brow. "Ryan," she said. "I've been worried about you, even though we agreed I'm not supposed to do that sort of thing." She smiled. "Are you all right?"

Ryan staggered back. She knew him intimately, that much was obvious. But he didn't remember her. There might be something familiar about her, but as much as he tried to remember, he came up blank. What had their relationship been? He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about her. Had they been friends? Lovers? He didn't know.

What he felt for her now was nothing. A void of emotion.

He could tell, too, that she would be hurt if she knew the indifference he felt toward her. And it scared him that he felt pleasure in withholding his feelings from her. It seemed to be true that the Ryan Mercury she knew would not lie to her.

But the new Ryan Mercury understood things in a different way. The new Ryan Mercury-the man with two pasts-knew that lying now might give him an edge in the future. This woman's concern for him, and his feigned interest in her, might just be the perfect way to manipulate her.

In front of Thomas Roxborough stood a boy of Mayan descent. Beautiful, golden brown skin, smooth and soft and without blemish. His large eyes were the color of cafe au lait, and his thick black hair had been cut short about his ears. His name was Alberto, and he was a Matrix creation from Roxborough's fantasies.

He was a reflection in Roxborough's mind, a virtual sculpture of his desires. Alberto was young and robust and muscled in all the right places. A boy who might, if he were real, grow up to have a body like that of Ryan Mercury.

Roxborough allowed himself a moment of pleasure in the thought, and was about to indulge his fantasy when he was interrupted by a call from Franklinson. Roxborough sighed; the boy would have to wait. He touched the boy's lips with his finger. "Pause," he said, and the boy's virtual presence froze. He would stay that way until Roxborough returned.

Roxborough looked in on Franklinson, his huge, ugly body sitting in the security room, surrounded by screens. A closed-circuit rigger was jacked into the console next to the troll. "Yes," Roxborough said, activating his screen icon.

"Sir," said Franklinson as he sat upright in the chair, "I believe we have prevented your spy from escaping Aztlan territory, but he is dead."

"Tell me about it."

"Four of our fighters intercepted them near the Panama Canal Zone border and shot them down. Their craft sustained massive damage when it impacted with the ground and exploded. We could find no survivors."

"Did you find the body?

"I'm afraid not. Everything was blown apart and burned

beyond recognition. We might recover some bone fragments. I'll let you know."

"Has a mage assensed the wreckage?"

"Yes, but the results are inconclusive, as are most things magical." Franklinson was not known for his trust of shamans and mages.

Roxborough frowned. "It is possible, then, that Mercury and the others escaped. Perhaps they weren't aboard when the T-bird exploded."

Franklinson's face remained impassive. "Possible," he said. "But not likely."

"Still, I will have Meyer continue his ritual magic, if only to determine whether Mercury is alive or not."

"Yes, sir," the troll said. He did not look happy.

Roxborough wanted to return to his encounter with the boy, Alberto, but he couldn't just yet. He activated the cameras in the sub-basement ritual room. Dim blue and violet light shone on the walls. Tall candles of black and red wax burned around the perimeter of a large ritual magic circle, their flames filling the chamber with the scent of anise. The circle itself had been created with chicken blood from fresh sacrifices, dripped from a cured goat stomach that Meyer used for all his ritual circles.

Meyer and two others sat cross-legged inside the circle, each one at an apex of an equilateral triangle that had been drawn in black ink on the duracrete floor. Roxborough did not want to interrupt, but Meyer must have noticed the cameras coming on because he addressed Roxborough.

The elf looked up at one of the cameras. "We're just about to begin the ritual," he said. "Unless you have news that will allow us to forgo this and get on with our real work."

"I'm sorry," said Roxborough. "Franklinson is not one hundred percent sure that Mercury is dead. I need certainty."

Meyer nodded. "You'll get it. If Mercury is alive in the world, we'll find him. If we do, we'll destroy him."

"Good, good," said Roxborough. "That's what I wanted to hear."

"Then we will begin." Meyer turned to speak with the others and soon they were lost in a trance-like state. Roxborough watched for a minute, then left them alone. Ritual

magic wasn't much to see, unless you could look into astral space. But it was quite effective.

It was with that thought in his head, the sensation of completion that came with a job well done, that Roxborough returned to his fantasy. To Alberto and his lovely gold-brown skin. Roxborough touched the boy's naked body, making him come alive and smile as he looked up with large, dark eyes.

"Now," Roxborough said to the boy, "shall we continue?"

In the small cabin on the Exeter, Ryan looked at the beautiful elven face on the telecom screen. Nadja Daviar. The gray metal room was an oppressive monochrome around him. "I'm just a little disoriented," he said. "It's been a rough day."

"Well, it's not over yet," she said. "You must get here as fast as possible. Jane's team will fly you to Lima, where you'll all catch a suborbital to Seattle. There, Jane's group will take you to their compound, and I'll have transportation waiting for you there."

And as she spoke, a spark of recognition flared inside Ryan. Something about her inflection or the way the corner of her mouth moved. The one endearing flaw in her otherwise perfect body. He couldn't quite pin down what it was.

"The whole trip shouldn't take more than four or five hours," she said. "I'll see you tonight."

"Good."

"Yeah, I have to make sure that all this nuyen I'm spending to get you out hasn't gone to waste. Nothing personal."

"Of course not," Ryan said. Nadja seemed guarded about something. Is she nervous about seeing me? he thought. Perhaps.

"See you later then," she said, but did not disconnect.

"Goodbye, Nadja," said Ryan, then cut the line.

Axler stepped in next to Ryan. "We've got to roll," she said. "Now." And she rushed him back up top and into a waiting helo-a big, double-rotored kind that flew them south across the water toward Peru.

The next four hours went exactly as Nadja had described. A suborbital jet awaited them on the tarmac when they landed in Lima. The logo emblazoned on the fuselage proclaimed it to be owned by Gavilan Industries, and they were the only passengers. Ryan wondered how Nadja or Jane had arranged that.